SECRETS OF THE BABY WHISPERER: How to Calm, Connect and Communicate with Your Baby

Dec 18, 2000

Tracy Hogg with Melinda Blau. Ballantine, $22 (256p) ISBN 0-345-44075

Dubbed "the baby whisperer" for her ability to connect with babies, British born and trained consultant and nurse Tracy Hogg defines her program as an effective compromise to currently popular parenting advice. At the center of her philosophy is the idea that one must treat babies with respect and "provide a daily dose of dependability, structure, and predictability." While believing it is healthiest to train babies to be independent, she doesn't approve of the more extreme "cry it out" approach advocated in some literature; likewise, she is adamantly against co-sleeping and on-cue feeding, the hallmarks of "attachment parenting." Starting with the first day the baby comes home from the hospital, she offers a program of daily structure called EASY (Eating, Activity, Sleeping, You) to enable parents to meet their babies' needs without overly indulging them and without becoming rundown by the demands of an infant. Similarly, her SLOW (Stop, Listen, Observe, What's Up?) method for interpreting a child's cry (what she calls a baby's language) and determining the appropriate response provides tremendous insight. Hogg also includes a sensitively written chapter on babies with special needs, and addresses-with spunky British humor (which although personal can be bossy) and compassion-all the other issues new parents deal with, such as no time for or interest in sex; breastfeeding; and gaining control over parenting gone awry. Agent, Eileen Cope of the Lowenstein Literary Agency.(Jan. 30)

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